By Ron Henry Strait, For the Express-News – Racks & Reelshttp://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels
News and information on hunting, archery and fishing in South and Central Texas. Boating, lake level and river level information provided for Braunig Lake, Lake Calaveras, Canyon Lake, Medina Lake and others. Whitetail deer and turkey season information and tips.Thu, 06 Oct 2016 21:48:58 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1Sleep time for deer depends on what’s ‘normal’http://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels/2013/12/19/sleep-time-for-deer-depends-on-whats-normal/
Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:04:35 +0000http://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels/?guid=c08a076d612824650f245826bd8c9382BIZY 6 — Every deer hunt in the Canyon Country of West Texas teaches a lesson.

Some lessons are practical, such as:

Most of the time, a good knife is of more use than a firearm, and there is no substitute for a list of gate combinations stored on a smart phone.

Other lessons are more personal. The choice of companions often determines the quality of the hunt, but sometimes the hunt is about “me.” On our lease, a fellow might find himself hunting alone, on foot, 5 miles from anywhere on 10 sections of land with just an hour of daylight left. That circumstance is a rewarding lesson unto itself.

However, the most valuable lessons in deer hunting involve deer. When a hunter watches a deer, what is he seeing?

The question arises after a hunt in extreme conditions. It was the morning after a strong cold front moved through the desert during the night. The sky was clear, but the wind was gusting to 30-plus mph and the temperature was in the low 40s.

Successful desert hunting depends on luck, and hunters here usually have to make their own. So we were afield before sunrise, standing on an open mesquite flat glassing the west wall of a brushy canyon.

As the light gathered, we could see deer. They were motionless and not apparent to the casual observer.

A dozen does were high on the wall to the left. A heavy-horned buck was 50 yards to the right. All were bedded up where they could catch the first rays of the sun, be out of the wind and watch their surroundings.

But from looking at them through binoculars, it seemed they were unaware of the Jeep and the two large moving objects staring at them from the mesquite flat across the canyon. The buck was larger and closer than the does, and his eyelids appeared to be half-shut.

Were they asleep? Do deer sleep?

Well, they do, according to Dr. Jerry Cooke, wildlife biologist and former director of the Wildlife Division at the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.

“Just like you or I sleep, but they are much more trusting of their senses than humans, unless the human has been trained to be,” Cooke said. “They wake up easily to any strange sound or smell.”

But that rule is not set in stone. Cooke recalled his days working in the deer pens at the Department of Veterinary Pathology at Texas A&M. At first, all the deer woke up when he opened the main gate.

“After a couple of months, some would continue sleeping even when I walked past their pen,” he said.

He speculated his routine had become what was “normal” in their environment and his presence was nothing particularly dangerous. In that regard, “(Deer) are just like cows but not nearly as trusting.”

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, our deer group on the brushy hillside remained laid up, dozing and unaware as the sun came up.

How long could this go on?

Cooke said there is a combination of factors that determine bedding time for white-tailed deer.

His insights might be useful to hunters who use wildlife feeders on big property during hunting season.

“It depends on the time of year and how much effort (the deer) have to put into foraging,” Cooke said.

If food sources are scarce — called a “coarse-grained” landscape — the deer will spend more time moving and searching for food.

“If resources are fine grained (more abundant food) on the landscape — i.e., they can satisfy their needs in fewer steps — the cost of obtaining resources is low and the deer will have more time to lay up and chew their cud or hustle up a breeding partner,” he said.

“Deer will lay up when they can or when they must, but it’s not going to be some fixed (pattern).”

In hindsight lessons learned: The deer on the hillside couldn’t smell us because of the wind and they weren’t hungry enough to get up and move. With time, they couldn’t see us as the morning sun was in their eyes.

We didn’t shoot them because we couldn’t hold the crosshairs steady in the gale-force, frigid wind. It was difficult keeping them in view with binoculars.

]]>Hunt for the holiday giftshttp://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels/2013/12/05/hunt-for-the-holiday-gifts/
Fri, 06 Dec 2013 00:06:16 +0000http://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels/?guid=316468bbccadd4264752a163368398b4SAN ANTONIO — If your vision of an outdoors gift this year includes a binocular, there’s certainly plenty of help in making the right choice on the Internet.

Perhaps too much help.

A view across the broad spectrum of choices yields no quick solution.

If you want to be an “eagle eye” in the field, you need a device that magnifies only four to eight times human visual capacity. In human terms (20/20 vision standard) that would be 20/4 vision.

As you follow that thread: It would be nice to have “albatross eye” that would enable better vision in hazy conditions. Throw in “American woodcock” vision that brings with it 360-degree horizontal vision, “robin vision” that can detect magnetic fields using cryptochromatic enablers … and, uh … back arrow, back arrow to the basics.

There are many more familiar binocular choices online, including Leupold, Nikon, Steiner, Bushnell, Swarovski and Zeiss. And some of those are birds of a different feather, with options such as built-in, high-resolution cameras, variable magnifications and night-vision capabilities.

The choice of a binocular probably will be determined in some part by price. More importantly, the first consideration should be what the use of this outdoor tool will be.

The best approach is to assume the worst. This precision piece of equipment will be used in the elements, read “water.” Rain, dew, saltwater spray and fog will meet the binocular, but so will the rapid change from warm cabin to freezing air, and vice versa.

A waterproof binocular that has “rubber armor” and “fog proof,” sealed, gas-filled tubes and 8X (eight times) magnification should serve the user well for a long time. The price usually is determined more by the quality of the glass used internally, so consider that the eagle-eyed viewer can also have sharper vision that comes with price.

Also consider size and weight, as well as the objective lens size. The set numbers associated with binoculars are commonly “8X30,” or some such definition.

The “8” (first number) is the magnification, as in eight power; the “30” (second number) is the size in millimeters of the objective (front) lens. The larger the second number, the more light that will be allowed into the binocular’s tubes.

More light, better view.

Online, see basspro.com, cabellas.com, binoculars.com or opticsplanet.com. Prices range from $75 to $5,000.

]]>School’s in for fly fishinghttp://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels/2013/09/05/schools-in-for-fly-fishing/
Thu, 05 Sep 2013 22:34:31 +0000http://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels/?guid=70336a51c87045d45a5325f314593c72NEW BRAUNFELS — School is back in session, and relative quiet has returned to the woods and inland waters that have survived another assault from Texas summer heat, drought, boaters, tubers and trekkers.

While the sizzle is still on and the dry landscape persists, the weeks between the start of school and the arrival of the first cool fronts are a good time for the squared-away outdoorsman to expand another aspect of angling education — basic fly fishing.

Local waterways serve as the convenient classrooms. A satchel of tackle matched to the coursework is essential, of course, and it really helps to have good instructors.

As for the classrooms, area rivers are low and flowing at minimal volumes, some near historic lows for the season, and calm, lazy rivers can be good news for angler education.

In the Hill Country north of San Antonio, the calm waters include the San Marcos, Blanco and Guadalupe rivers. Common advantages among these venues include some flowing water, abundant fish and public access. Drought conditions make location a factor, particularly on the Blanco River.

As for the teachers, look no further than Kevin Stubbs and Bruce Young.

Stubbs, who operates Expedition Outfitters, has been guiding on area rivers for more than two decades, and Young, a 15-year staffer at Tackle Box Outfitters on North New Braunfels Ave., has been fishing for as long as he can remember — and fly fishing since his teens.

Stubbs knows the three river venues on the classroom list.

The San Marcos River is accessible and reliable, as it springs from the ground in San Marcos (30 miles up Interstate 35) and flows 75 miles southeast to its confluence with the Guadalupe River near Gonzales.

The Blanco River is a really pleasant and peaceful place, but with low flows, the most dependable water for anglers looking to learn or hone skills is at the state park in Blanco (north on U.S. Highway 281 about 40 miles).

The nearby Guadalupe River retains its constant level status on a chain of lakes below Canyon Dam. Those lakes with easy access include Dunlap (400 acres, New Braunfels) and Placid (200 acres, Seguin).

Stubbs’ choice of Dunlap for the day’s lesson was obvious: Easy access and constant-level water stocked with bass, catfish and striped bass, and chock full of eager sunfish.

By the time morning school bells were ringing, Stubbs was rowing upstream against the Guadalupe’s soft current, out from the ramp under the I-35 bridge and toward the dam near the Faust Street bridge. The water was clear and green, and Stubbs was looking for prospects lurking in the shadows behind the cypress knees and deadfalls.

Young was not sitting idle. He was prepping gear, including a vintage Phillips on fiberglass 6-weight rod and a circa 1964 4-weight Shakespeare. Classic old-school tackle.

“Either rod could handle most of the fish we were looking for (at Dunlap),” he said this week at the Tackle Box. The calm water made his choice of presentations easy. “Put (the fly) as near to cover as possible. If there were more current, we would fish outside the current. The fish would be near the current, but not in it.”

As it was, the only movements on Dunlap this day were an occasional breeze that nudged Stubbs’ 14 Outcast inflatable pontoon boat. In the front seat, Young’s roll casts and deft sidearm skills placed tiny poopers near bulkheads and into extremely tight places. He passed repeated tests of his casting skills.

The results were consistent, if not spectacular. Lots of hand-sized panfish with an occasional look-and-follow from largemouth bass that remained reluctant to leave heavy cover.

The day’s lesson ended before noon, and we were at the ramp before the heat set in.

It’s always good when the school day ends early and the teachers are pleased.

]]>Stream of consciousnesshttp://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels/2013/04/25/stream-of-consciousness/
Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:04:03 +0000http://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels/?guid=fe164d8d728c302233f27ef99b6aa810Stream fishing, even in dry times, has a lot to offer to Texas anglers, no matter the skill level or expectations.

There are basic needs to be filled and a couple of laws to be followed by all anglers. Meet those basics and mix a few dollars with some warm weather, and a summer of river fishing fun is feasible, even for beginners.

First comes the fish.

“We’ve got plenty of fish in our rivers,” said Steve Magnelia, director of the River Studies Program for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. “The channel catfish is a target species in the summer. There are sunfish. Red-breasted sunfish are abundant, and there are Guadalupe bass in the Hill Country streams. There are largemouth bass in the Colorado River.”

Magnelia said now is a good time to bass fish the Colorado River between Austin and Bastrop. The improved conditions are seasonal.

“Last summer, there was so much vegetation in the river that it made the river difficult to fish,” he said. “Right now, before the weather warms up, there is less aquatic vegetation. Fishing conditions are better and the bass are biting.”

If we get some rain and the rivers go on a rise, Magnelia said, the channel catfish will move up close to the bank and be easier to catch.

Farther up the Guadalupe River, at the base of Canyon Dam, rainbow trout will survive the warm weather, thanks to cold water being released from Canyon Lake.

“There are trout in the Guadalupe as far down as the second crossing on FM 306,” Magnelia said. “There can be trout below the rapids at Camp Hueco Springs, (too).”

Catfish, bass, perch and rainbow trout are nice, but the first step down the path to a summer fishing hole is finding access — a place to fish.

In Texas, that can be an issue. While the waters are public, many times the shoreline is private property, which means that getting to a fishing hole might be restricted. Here are some tips:

The easiest way to get to a river is to use public areas such as city and state parks. The fish usually are abundant, although small, but as long as expectations are reasonable, there is no limit to the fun.

A dozen perch caught with a cork bobber and a cane pole makes a banner day for a youngster.

Fishing in public waters (freshwater and saltwater) requires that anglers 17 years and older have a valid fishing license in most cases. There are a few truly “free” fishing exceptions.

Fishing from the banks and piers in state parks requires no license, and there is an annual Free Fishing Day, the first Saturday in June, when fishing statewide is license-free (June 1 this year). Resident fishing license prices range from $7-$40, depending on the age of the angler and the duration of the license.

With a license and access, the next step down the path is fishing tackle. A cane pole with hook, line, sinker and bobber can be assembled for about $10. Kits that include a reel with a rod and the other gear are available at sporting goods stores for about $25.

There are lots of baits available, including artificial lures in hundreds of variations, but if you want to increase your chances of catching a fish, use natural baits. Marinas, bait shops and sporting goods departments usually sell night-crawlers or red worms, but there are lots of other options.

In warm months, common garden-variety grasshoppers and crickets make great baits. If catfish are the target of the day’s trip, chicken livers, shrimp, cheese and commercial “stink” baits are available.

Putting all the pieces together can be a challenge. For those who grew up fishing, angling skills have always been there. But for beginners, such as single parents or other adults who have decided to take up fishing, lessons are available through the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department.

Classes are offered at several state parks. In the Central Texas region, Inks Lake State Park will conduct dozens of classes over the next five months.

Closer to home, Blanco State Park starts its program May 18, the same day the classes start at McKinney Falls State Park, near Austin. Bastrop State Park has a class on June 8.

The complete schedule, as well as license details and fishing reports, is available online at tpwd.state.tx.us.

]]>Collect callinghttp://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels/2013/04/11/collect-calling/
Thu, 11 Apr 2013 22:49:12 +0000http://blog.mysanantonio.com/racksnreels/?guid=5a9d5ad677c2b892c9f042f5cccdbc63The world of collectibles is an odd realm. It’s a world with no borders, few rules and an endless horizon of opportunity.

As for the endless part, the issue at hand is collectible objects related to outdoors pursuits. While that narrows the scope of the search, it does nothing to limit the opportunity.

Fishing lures and duck decoys are common collectibles, but the right stuff could be ash trays shaped like fish, a knife with fish engraved on the handle or a cook book that features wild-game recipes.

“You can collect just about anything,” said Bubba Wood, proprietor of Collector’s Covey in Dallas. His shop specializes in art objects — paintings, prints, statues, books — mostly related to the natural world.

But where do you begin?

“I would tell people to start with knowledge,” Wood said. “You can’t know enough about what you’re collecting.”

What about rules?

“The one rule to have is to collect stuff you like,” he said. “Buy what you like, what you’re interested in, then, if it doesn’t appreciate like you maybe hoped, you still have stuff you like.”

Lawrence, a wildlife watercolor artist with a background in retail marketing, is executive director of the Texas Outdoor Writers Association. She has been collecting for more than 20 years. Her path to be a collector is typical.

“For most us, it wasn’t intentional,” Lawrence said. “It’s a process. You don’t know you’re collecting. We call that stage the ‘closet collector.’ All of a sudden, you have a dozen of something.”

For Lawrence, it started when she found an empty reel box.

“It once held a Pflueger Nobby #1965,” she said. “Not knowing anything, I thought, ‘How hard can it be to find that reel?’”

As it turned out, nearly impossible.

The search for the Pflueger #1965 resulted in the acquisition of more than a dozen reels — each brought home in the hope that it would be the “right” one.

The search also meant the acquisition of a lot of knowledge about reels, in general, and related tackle, ephemera and paraphernalia, such as fish decoys, fishing bobbers, empty lure boxes, wooden tackle boxes and the like.

Her hunt for the right old stuff ended after three years with a modern touch.

“I found the Pflueger (#1965) on the Internet,” she said. “The Internet is the change in how collectibles are acquired.”

The Internet has knocked down the geographical boundaries of collecting.

“When I got started, there were newsletters, a few online chat sites and collector meetings and meets,” Lawrence said. “They are still around, and there are auction houses that deal in sporting collectibles.”

The international collector scene is a much larger factor in the market. Now the world is the marketplace, she said, citing the Asian market as an example.

“For a while, the reels I specialize in (1950s era) were very hot in Japan,” she said. “Now that economy has changed and the market is down.”

Internet auctions and swap meets also level the playing field, Lawrence said. It’s where the golden rule applies: The person with the most gold rules.

“You have the little crappie fisherman standing shoulder-to-shoulder against the high-dollar guy,” she said. “Collectors want ‘it’ because they want ‘it,’ and they’ll do what they have to do.”

And then there’s the Holy Grail of collecting.

“Every collector has (a Holy Grail),” she said. “It’s the rare find, the one missing item in a collection. The high-dollar item at a bargain price.”

Lawrence tells the story of one reel collector who rummaged through boxes of old reels for years before coming onto a rare find in a basket of old, broken tackle. The buyer kept the poker face, asked about other items, bought a couple and as an afterthought extracted the rare find from the box and asked about the price, which was $70.

The find was posted on the Internet that day. The opening offer was more than $6,000.

“It’s unrealistic to think that can happen very often,” Lawrence said. “But the Holy Grail is out there.”

That’s the old stuff. What about new collectibles? The saying among collectors is that if a new item is sold as a “collectible,” it probably isn’t.

Lawrence uses her artist’s eye with newer items. A hand-carved, painted wooden turkey decoy is such an item. “You see something you like, you get it.”

At Collector’s Covey, Bubba Wood agrees.

“People collect old spurs, ranch signs, weather vanes,” he said. “I started collecting modern duck decoys in the 1970s.”

About the same time, he recalls, paintings by artist Howard Terpning were selling between $7,500 and $10,000.

“I remember looking at them and saying, ‘Man, they’re beautiful, but that’s a lot of money.’”

Last month, Wood said, one of those paintings sold for nearly $2 million.

“So much for my decoys,” said Wood, who still has them.

That kind of price increase is more of a mother lode than a Holy Grail, but it illustrates the potential of the collecting the right stuff and settling for the satisfaction of owning the stuff you like.

“Nothing is reliably collectible,” Wood said. “There is no ‘sure thing’ in collecting. There can be a short window of time when values appreciate, but you can’t predict it. If it (collecting) were that easy, everybody would do it.”